A large, bright fireball shined in the skies visible from the southern part of the United States last week on Aug. 28. In footage recorded by NASA, the fireball outshines the moon.

The fireball was in fact a meteor, or a flash of light caused when a particle from space burns up in our atmosphere. The meteor caused a fire-like blaze in the sky in the hours before dawn. Spectators from several southeastern states were able to enjoy the show briefly.

"Recorded by all six NASA cameras in the Southeast, this fireball was one of the brightest observed by the network in 5 years of operations," Bill Cooke, head of the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, wrote on his blog. "From Chickamauga, Georgia, the meteor was 20 times brighter than the full moon; shadows were cast on the ground as far south as Cartersville."

The meteor was caused by an asteroid, a relatively small and rocky object that orbits a star. This particular asteroid was about two feet wide and weighed over 200 pounds, according to Cooke.

The asteroid entered Earth's atmosphere right above the border dividing Georgia and Tennessee at 3: 27 a.m. EDT. The space rock was traveling northeast at 56,000 mph.

Next, the asteroid starting to disintegrate and break apart in the sky at an altitude of 33 miles. This happened above northeast Ocoee, Tenn.

Although this meteor caused a show, meteors, commonly known as shooting stars, are very common in Earth's atmosphere. Over 100 tons of matter, such as dust and pieces of comets and asteroids, enter the atmosphere daily. These pieces typically burn up in the atmosphere, often without notice, other times causing visible meteors.

When a meteor shines brighter than Venus, it is considered a fireball. Currently, NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office has a network of cameras dedicated to studying fireballs. The All-sky Fireball Network has 12 cameras; six are in the southeast covering Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee. The rest of the cameras are in New Mexico, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Asteroids are officially considered part of a category known as "small solar system bodies." These category consists of scraps left over from the formation of the solar system, so their study give us scientists an understanding of how the planets and larger moons came to exist. The name asteroid means "star-like."

Watch the video of the bright fireball here.

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